A brief, non complete, working summary of the Arduino and ‘near Arduino’ Boards I’ve seen whilst deciding which to use. A history of the reference boards is here.
All have ATmega168 unless stated. They range in price from just under $20/€20/£15 to just over $35/€35/£25. Differences between suppliers and shipping costs available can often make a bigger difference than the price difference between the boards.
Duemilanove
ATmega168 or ATmega328 (since March 2009)
52×69mm, USB-B, auto power select, auto reset can be disabled by cutting a trace/re-enabled by soldering. 15 Digital IO (6PWM), 6 Analogue IO.
The reference implementation – replaces the Decimeila. Version with ATmega328 (32K Flash memory) started ’shipping’ in March 2009 although as of time of print it doesn’t seem to be widely available (Maker Shed does stock).
Nano
18×43mm, integrated USB-B, no power socket, 14 Digital IO, 8 Analogue IO.
Complete Arduino but smaller, has a header plug rather than socket allowing it to be plugged into a breadboard.
Mini
18×30mm, No USB or power socket, 14 Digital IO, 8 Analogue (only two broken out),
18×30mm, has a header plug rather than socket allowing it to be plugged into a breadboard, can be plugged into detachable USB board for programming.
LillyPad
Circular (50mm diameter) wearable version of Arduino, uses low power ATmega168V
Seeeduino
ATmega168
As Decimeila but SMD components, Mini USB, 2 Extra Analogue IO, switchable autoreset/power select.
Sparkfun embeddable ‘pro’ versions
No headers or onboard USB, available in two versions – 3.5V (8MHz) and 5V (8MHz)
Pro – 52×53mm
Pro Mini – 18×33mm
Funnel IO
LillyPad like Arduino in 24×66mm board with Lithium Polymer (LiPo) Charging circuit and XBee socket. Compatible with the Funnel toolkit – hardware and software.
Arduino Like
These all have AVR controllers but are not 100% compliant to some extent or other.
Teensy USB
Incredibly small and cheap – 18×30mm, AT90USB162 (inbuilt USB), mini USB, 21 I/O pins (No Analogue) with or without header pins.
Provide drop in to Arduino IDE for compliance
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